Tip of the Week: An Unknown Cause is Simply An Undiscovered Cause
This past weekend, we hosted the first (of many!!!!) PelviCon Symposium. As you may know, Andrew and I co-founded PelviCon- a conference for pelvic rehab providers, by pelvic rehab providers back in 2021. We are getting ready to host our 3rd PelviCon this September (with over 625 pelvic rehab providers traveling to Atlanta to participate!!). We love helping elevate the standard of care for pelvic rehab providers, and we also recognize that multidisciplinary care is crucial for so many of our patients! This is why PelviCon Symposium was born. Symposium is a multidisciplinary 1-day deep dive into a diagnoses-- and this year, we focused on Vulvodynia (a pain condition related to pain in the vulva). Our speakers included physicians, mental health providers, nutritionists, and physical therapists. And, it was an amazing day!
One of our first presenters of the day was Dr. Jill Krapf, an internationally-recognized physician specializing in sexual medicine and vulvar pain, based out of Tampa, FL. Dr. Krapf spoke about many of the different causes of vulvodynia, but she said one thing that really resonated with me. When speaking of the idea of pain with an "unknown cause," she said,"I like to think of this as an undiscovered cause." And, I loved that. So often, patients dealing with persistent pain are made to feel like their pain is "all in their head." Many are dismissed, see multiple different providers, and can often feel hopeless. Honestly, that's a big part of our mission at SPH-- to journey alongside patients and ensure their story is different.
"Undiscovered" is a much more positive way of thinking of a problem-- undiscovered means we need to investigate further. It means we need to look deeper, explore different options. It means that we WILL figure out what is going on. And the reality is that sometimes it takes a journey to find the right angle-- it takes a team!
So-- if you've been dealing with something and your providers don't really know why or don't really know exactly what's going on-- you aren't alone. It doesn't mean it's "in your head." It simply means that we need to keep investigating until we figure it out!
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Weekly Tips Pelvic Health Tips By Dr. Jessica Reale PT, DPT, WCS